Please join me in welcoming author Delle Jacobs. She’s a TRIPLE Golden Heart Winner and currently writes for Samhain books.

And now, here’s Delle!

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I’m so tickled to be a Chica for the Day! Thanks for inviting me. I feel sort of as if I belong because I’m Southern on my mothers side. And there’s no doubt parts of me, especially my brain are a bit fried. As for “chica“, well, that means little, and I’m not—anymore—But at least I got the first two parts right.

I admit I get all excited every time my books come out, but APHRODITE’S BREW is even more special to me, for several reasons. You know how we writers get used to going from rejection to rejection? How editors can look us squarely in the eye and tell us they didn’t quite love our babies enough? (And if any of you ever figure out what the heck that means in real words, be sure to let me know.) Well, that’s not what happened to this book.

I started out writing APHRODITE’S BREW almost as a joke, a way to soothe my author’s ego, which was quite battered at the time. I decided to write something utterly silly. Just for fun, for me. It would never see the light of day. I did the bare bones first draft in a month. But in the process of that first draft, Sylvia and Val stepped off the page and told me I was not treating them fairly, and I had no notion at all what the real truth was. By the time I typed The End, guilt overwhelmed me and I gave in. All right, I’ll do better, I told them. Later.

Then came the Golden Heart deadline. I wasn’t going to enter. I’d already won the year before with HIS MAJESTY, THE PRINCE OF TOADS, and what would I do with another heart? Make earrings? But the Regency category was in danger of not having enough entrants and my friends started nagging me about doing my part. I had three weeks. By the time I finished the second draft, I was even more sure I had not been fair to Val and Sylvia. But no matter. It was far too rough and had no chance of winning. So I could still go back and no one would be the wiser.

It won. But you guessed that, didn’t you? Earrings it would be. Three editors requested it, so I wrote and polished like crazy. And three—-I KID YOU NOT—-three editors wanted to buy it. As luck would have it, that was the very moment the Regency market folded in on itself. By then it had become the hot and sensual Regency Historical that was worthy of Val and Sylvia. But its market had vanished.. Maybe if it hadn’t won the Regency category, editors might have been more open to seeing it as the Historical it became, who knows?

So it sat on the shelf like a maiden aunt. Then finally a friend persuaded me to send it to Samhain, where once more I found an editor who fell in love with it, and this time, bought it. And every time I go over the story again, I love it even more. I love that it’s got all its original silliness and fun, yet has a poignant story that goes deeply to the soul.

On the surface, it’s the story of a love potion that falls into the wrong hands and gets out of control, with Sylvia and Val caught in the middle of the turmoil. But it’s what happens to them in their quest to uncover the supposed fraud that is the true story. And in the end, Val does the most amazing thing- something I had no idea he would do until he did it. But now I can see he did it because he’s Val, and he could never have done less, once he was changed through his interaction with Sylvia.

I hope you fall in love with Val and Sylvia just as I did, and may they give you much reading pleasure.

It’s not even a week until my book APHRODITE’S BREW comes out. To celebrate, I’ll give to one person who comments on my blog a download of the book (when it’s released March 4th) along with a little surprise- providing you like chocolate. (I’ll write the names on slips of paper and give them to my cat, and see which one she plays with. Or sits on, as the case might be. Who can tell? She’s a cat.)

AND every person who requests it will be entered in my drawing for the Grand Prize, to be given away in June. Anyone who buys the book and shows me the receipt will get 10 extra chances for the Grand Prize. If they also buy my second release, SINS OF THE HEART, in June, they’ll get an additional 20 chances. Other opportunities abound—-check them out on my website.

And if you buy within the first week of its release, there’s a 20% discount at Samhain. Right now it’s still a “Coming Soon” but you can read the blurb here. And when it comes out, you just take the “coming” part out of the URL to go straight to the book. Or go back to my website.

What’s the Grand Prize? I’m offering a choice of prizes, each valued at around $100. First, there’s The “aider” set of Barbie & Ken, after Jude Deveraux’s book of that name. Still in its original packing and box. Here’s an example on Ebay.

Or there’s a SkinIt which I will custom design for you. What’s a SkinIt? Look here:

Here’s the one I did for my own laptop: